


Grief

by Songofpsalms297



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Hopeful angst, Possible conversation between Cassandra and Varric, Post-Here Lies the Abyss, Spoilers, angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-24 05:20:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13206828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Songofpsalms297/pseuds/Songofpsalms297
Summary: An angsty little drabble of a conversation between Varric and Cassandra, post "Here Lies The Abyss."*spoilers*





	Grief

**Author's Note:**

> This year has been one of the most difficult of my life. I have lost far too many people. However, I am supremely grateful for the community here. You all have encouraged, challenged, and welcomed me. Thank you for making me part of this family of creative people.  
> May you spend your holidays surrounded by your loved ones, and may 2018 be kinder to us all.
> 
> Oh my word! I am reviewing some of my writing and am appalled by the spelling, grammar, and other errors.   
> In the immortal words of Cassandra, "Ugh."

He sighs. Grief weighs him down.

"It's alright, Seeker. I know I'm not what you expected to find when you fell for someone. I'll just, I’ll go." Pure shock renders her immobile. Painful moments squeeze by as she sees him put down his tumbler on the stand by the roaring fire. Horrified by his intention which becomes clearer as he crosses the room, reaching for the door. She's motion. Before she registers movement, she’s poised, kneeling on her bed.

Except in moments of great, piercing, loss. Anthony's death flashes before her eye, and the paralysis which rendered her immobile then rushes through her now. She'd had a clear view of the altercation, and his execution.  8-year-old girls should never see the glint of a silver blade slide through neck muscles, it’s shine in the sun a mockery of the darkness it brings.

She remembers the day they lost their parents. When the soldiers had broken in upon their play. Mother had been braiding Cassandra's flowing locks, Papa and Anthony had been playing chess. One braid had been pinned around the top of her head, the other braid waited. Breathlessly. Even as the soldier nearest her mother roughly shoved Cassandra out of his way. She missed what words the soldier had bellowed at her. Just saw the tears running down her mother's face.

A glimmer of golden-red snaps her out of her frozen past. She sees his tears. It comes out broke, a gasp.

"Varric?" She won't let him go without a fight. She will fix whatever has caused his distress this time. Corypheus, or Inquisition be damned. She sees him still. As though she were a mage and had the power to force his movements with the power of her words. "Love?"

Warm amber eyes glimmering with the slightest hope meet hers. He shrugs. Hopelessness conveyed by the shifting of his broad shoulders.

"They all abandon me sooner or later, Cass. For less reason than you've got." He lets himself grin at her indignant snort. Grief drowns him again. His voice breaks,

"Even Hawke. He didn't even like the damned Wardens. Hell, the only time we'd ever met one was Stroud who walked away and watched Kirkwall burn." His fist clenched with remembered fury. "Then the bastard goes and sacrifices himself to the damned nightmare."

An involuntary sob breaches her throat, pulling him from his grief to catch her eye. "I'm sorry, Cass." He turns again to the door. Never had she wished to be a mage more than in this moment. It’s the only means she can think of to get him to understand the depth of her love, her amazement that someone who hated her, whom she hated with equal fervor chose to become first a comrade in arms. Then a friend, then a companion whose stories and teasing made her feel accepted.

He’d tease her about how she was all sharp angles, that he could sharpen the nib of his quill on her cheekbones, or elbows. And depending on who surrounded them was playful or flirty. Somehow their amiable fireside chats became trusted tale sharing. History. Her past, his. Woven into a tapestry of laughter, tears, friendship, and time spent. Incredibly, somehow despite their ideological differences, his boundaries defining family shifted once again. And much to her surprise and delight, she found those boundary lines included her, Cassandra “Too-Many-Names” Pentaghast.

Because she needs him to understand, he must. She puts all her love, all her emotion, all her reasons for loving him into one word. Desperately hoping he might just hear it and stop this headlong rush, the closing of the door that would gut her. Her eyes widen as she realizes, if he left her, assuming she was just wasting time with him, that it meant no more to her than that, his loss would gut her like Anthony’s death had. She pours everything into the one word she can speak. The one word she can squeeze past the constriction in her throat.

She prays to the Maker, and Andraste that this stupid, marvelous, irritating, beautiful, warm, sensitive, dwarf understands what she means with her one word. That he is so much more than a dalliance. He has become her heart’s home. So, she reaches. Ignoring the searing in her breast, the tears that roll. She speaks. Hoping he hears everything she is trying desperately to convey in the one thing she can say.

"Don't."


End file.
